


Exception

by StairwellWit



Series: Salve [3]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: M/M, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-22
Updated: 2019-05-22
Packaged: 2020-03-09 16:48:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18921079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StairwellWit/pseuds/StairwellWit
Summary: How rare it is, has ever been, that you are in beautiful places for beautiful reasons.





	Exception

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to give a little shout out to CONN14 and solitaryjane on this one because I reread comments a lot and you two have left some that literally get me through the day some days.   
> And a huge thank you to everyone else who also comments and approves. It means so much and really keeps me going!!  
> So much love!!!   
> -s

You were much younger when you willingly resigned yourself to a life of unremarkabley beautiful things.   
How rare it is, has ever been, that you are in beautiful places for beautiful reasons.   
\--  
The day after (always the day after, because nearly every day is the day after some quiet little world shattering event) the sun comes up in a London flat. The orange light is bisected sharply through window slats and cuts Q, stretched on the bed, into sharp citrine slices.   
These mornings, when the sun turns him so very orange, you're certain you could taste citrus bursting from his skin if you just pressed your nails in deep enough in.   
The way the sun can kiss him through stained glass windows is so much more than you can give with your fingers in his hair. Your breath in his face. Your finger on a trigger and his voice in your ear. You're always taking, not giving, or even asking.   
But addiction is so easy, he's sweet and tart and perfect but you can't tell an orange how good it was once you've eaten it. Once the peel is all you've left because you have no self control and you destroy everything you touch so quickly you've forgotten what you had.   
You eat too fast to even truly enjoy the taste of anything that's touched your lips.  
The taste you hunt for in the abandoned room of your mouth, leftover but thin and only there for a moment before you just taste like disappointment again.   
You fear breaking him, tearing him asunder until he is too much like you, silent and empty and no one.   
What you fear is Q losing himself because you know what this is like. You say very little but when you do it's almost always something someone has told you to say. Your mouth is a guest room for others words to spill out from.   
You're a doll with the pull string looped in London. Everyone around you is alive at the dubious, dubious consent of your leash holders.   
You've grown tired and reckless; damaged goods and paper mache scars. An always hollow figure painted with whatever face you're meant to wear that day. The truth of you only rattling in a husk of what could have been.   
You try to tell yourself no one else could do it; the things you've done. But don't fool yourself. You're not that important.   
Sometimes you can't remember why you do the things you do. For queen and country is the obvious answer. The first one that leaves your mouth like a pavlovian tick; but the older you get the more you wonder what has either of them has done for you.  
Other than get you killed or killed you. Multiple times.  
You collect your own obituaries like your uncle collected stamps..maybe that was a cousin…a man from the war..   
It very well could have been you a whole lifetime ago but who would ever know.   
So, yes, how rare it is that you are in beautiful places for beautiful reasons.   
Beauty is not simplistic, it is not a given, you remind yourself, but you've seen so many sunsets it's beginning to get old. Even with your memory aging and admittedly much of it willfully forgotten, there are hundreds, still thousands, of worldly wonders. The four corners, yes, and all the other crevices, cubbies, caves and crags. If you're honest, you've hardly been impressed by any of it for a very long time and perhaps on some level you never truly were. At least you think, not in the way you should be; the way they tell you to be. The way you very often fake being.   
Q is stirring, and you cross the room, you kiss him on the base of his skull and neck. Right side, to exit left, because to make suicide look real it the dominant hand is where it's got to go in.   
He hums out "Heaven's gate" even half asleep and his toothy sleepy grin is more endearing than anything you've ever known.   
There is rhuem in the corners of his closed eyes, caught in his lashes that struggle to open, his long fingers curl over the bullet scar on your shoulder. There are lax curls painting the sheets, reflecting the sun, you kiss him and his breath is only mildly offensive.   
You kiss him simply because you can, because the stale sweaty smell of his skin, the aroma of old books, the kettle kicking on, and the fact the litterbox in the other room needs to be cleaned. It's painfully normal in contrast with the warehouse Q blew up last night, and the road burn on your right elbow.   
Against your lips he says, "Murder/suicide is the highest form of flattery, don't you think?" He always says things like he's reading your mind, "Its the first and last date, honeymoon phase and divorce all in one. You're so excited you can't even wait so you do it all at once"  
Its wretched, and horrible, but you snort, drop your forehead against the edge of his hair and grin, "What were you dreaming about? Don't make me smile at morbid things, Q."   
"Well, then, you'd hardly ever smile would you?"  
You shake you head a little and kiss the soft overnight shadow under his jaw. Perhaps 'normal' is not the word.   
"You're probably right."   
Q just shrugs his lithe breakable shoulders and reclines catlike into the saturated guillotine coming through the windows.  
It's 7 in the morning in a London flat, the day after - the day of - the world falling apart in some kind of international disaster. Q's alarm has started beeping, one of the cats is squalling to be fed, outside there is a car screeching and you are in desperate need of a shower.   
How rare it is you are in beautiful places for beautiful reasons. You think, this is as close to an exception as you will ever find.


End file.
